User blog:Geographer/The Earth: The Playing Stage of Geography
Geographers D. T. Herbert and J. A. Matthews say that “geography is the study of the surface of the Earth”, and that “geography should be thought of as the nexus where the three concepts – space, place, and environment – overlap”. Presumably, “space” means locations, distances, and directions; “place” is indicating a bounded space; and “environment” is referring to all the objects present in this bounded space. Simply, geography is the study of an area on Earth, or more precisely, the study of all phenomena that take place in this particular area, including their causes and impacts. This area can be at a global scale as well as a local scale, but no matter what, it must include both the natural environment and the human society. Therefore, geography is divided between physical geography and human geography. Geographical knowledge (i.e. knowledge about the surface of the Earth) has always been built upon the desire to venture into the unknown. If Charles Darwin had not participated in the voyage of the Beagle, a lot of geomorphological features of South America would not have been known. In fact, there are still a lot of expeditions, organised by the Royal Geographical Society for example, visiting some lesser-known places of the planet today. However, unlike journeys in Darwin’s times, today’s expeditions aim at forming better management plans for the balance between the natural environment and the human society rather than paving the way for empires to extend their sphere of influence. Physical Geography Simply put, physical geography is the study of the natural environment. Early physical geographers simply focused on locating different natural features (e.g. landforms, climate, vegetaion, soils, etc.) and describing them, but modern physical geographers also try to find out the variation of these features across places, the interactions between them, and their changes through time. To achieve these, physical geographers have to focus on processes rather than forms. For example, soil-forming processes like leaching, eluviation, and salinisation are important in explaining the variability of the world’s soil. Also, physical geographers have to downplay individual objects but place the interrelationships between them at the centre stage. For instance, a comprehensive understanding on how organisms survive in their environments is impossible if we solely study animals. Instead, we should also investigate how animals obtain energy from green plants and how they are decomposed by fungi and bacteria. Modern physical geography is very diversed as it covers, if not all, most aspects of the natural environment. The study of environmental change nowadays provides a good example. To re-construct past climatic events, physical geographers need to look at features that cover different aspects of the natural environment like ice cores, tree rings, corals, and lake sediments. To make their studies more comprehensive, physical geographers may also need to work with other natural scientists like palaeo-climatologists and palaeo-ecologists. To sum up, physical geography is unique and important because only physical geographers can contribute a spatial perspective to understanding the natural environment and exploring the interconnections between different aspects of the natural environment. Also, physical geographers offer the potential to work with human geographers if something that takes place in the natural environment may influence the human society. Human Geography In general, human geography is concerned with the ways in which people occupy the surface of the Earth. Early geographers tended to use the natural environment to explain different human actions. Later, human geographers realise that people can actually modify the natural environment, so in explaining different phenomena related to humans, they now turn to the culture and history of societies. Human geographers use both quantitative and qualitative approaches to explain human phenomena. For instance, human geographers make use of statistical data obtained from censuses to interpret the population and monitor any big changes happening on the population. These quantitative data are important to the government for formulating welfare policies or providing public services. However, in investigating some other topics, such kind of approach may not be useful. For example, human geographers cannot draw a boundary for a neighbourhood because different people have different perceptions of the concept of a neighbourhood. An old man cannot move around easily, so his neighbourhood may only be the few square feet around his house. On the contrary, to a young man who possesses a car, a place a few kilometres away from his home may still be part of his neighbourhood. Therefore, in certain studies, a more qualitative or humanistic approach is adopted. Similar to the way in which physical geographers study the natural environment, human geographers do not simply focus on one aspect of the human society while dealing with different problems. For instance, although development is mainly related to the economy, other aspects of the society such as cultural factors and political factors may also play a role in affecting development. Therefore, in measuring the level of development of a country, not only do human geographers look at its GDP, but they also take into account the HDI indices which combine measures like life expectancy and literacy levels. Integrated Geography Physical geography and human geography my seem utterly unrelated, but both of them still invoke the core concept of geography, which is to understand the causes and impacts of the phenomena that take place on Earth. In fact, some phenomena cannot be decoded without combining knowledge and skills from both sub-disciplines. For example, regional geography (which describes and analyses a particular place) and historical geography (which analyses a place at some time in the past and studies its change through time) cover aspects in both the natural environment and the human society, so an integrated approach is required. Among the few fields that require knowledge from both physical geography and human geography, the study of the reciprocal relationship between the natural environment and the human society seems to be the most important. In this field, not only do geographers study the effects of the natural environment on the human society and people’s activities, but they also focus on the impacts of human actions on the natural environment. Understanding these interrelationships can let us make better use of the natural resources we have, so that our next generations can also use those resources and enjoy a high quality of life. Furthermore, we can understand how vulnerable we are towards natural hazards, so that we will adapt ourselves better to avoid those potential dangers. For instance, we build embankments next to the river to prevent flooding. Strengths And Weaknesses of Geography As mentioned above, geography is a very broad discipline that covers many aspects of the Earth. In fact, this nature has provided geography with a lot of strengths. First of all, geography has high applicability in different fields. For example, private firms recruit physical geographers to tell them from which part of the Earth they can obtain cheap and sustainable resources, and also human geographers to inform them about where they should set up stores to attract the largest amount of people in order to maximise their profit. Also, political leaders or governments need physical geographers to tell them about some potential dangers brought about by the natural environment, as well as human geographers to explain to them about the population, so that they can formulate suitable policies that can enhance people’s quality of life. Secondly, geography is more relevant than ever to understand the world that we are living in. Nowadays, people often talk about sustainable development. Such a concern has given a lot of opportunities to geographers, who are concerned about both the natural environment and the human society. In other words, geographers are likely to propose measures which can foster better cohesion between nature and people. Furthermore, thanks to globalisation, people are now more concerned about global issues. In geography, which is the “study of the surface of the Earth”, there is an established tradition to study global-scale phenomena (e.g. climate change, immigration of people, etc.) apart from local- and regional-scale ones. Therefore, geography copes well with the modern trend. However, to a lot of people, geography is a “Jack of all treades, master of none”. This makes geographical studies less reliable and less influential to other people because they tend to think that geographers cannot provide in-depth analyses of various contemporary issues. Also, geography has a less visible presence in media than do other disciplines such as politics and economics, leading to a lack of understanding of it. People may therefore undervalue geography making geography unable to carry out its important functions. Therefore, geographers should stand up for geography by reiterating the significance of geography and emphasising on the important contributions that only they can make to the society. Category:Geography Wiki